Information, insight, and inspiration for people going through divorce from the Divorce Doc, Alison Patton

Hello readers,

I am back from my blogging sabbatical. I appreciated and enjoyed the emails from some of you during my absence (particularly one concerned email asking if I’d died. That one gave me a chuckle!). Nope, I’m still around, with no good excuse for dropping out of sight other than having an extremely busy year running my mediation and law practice while trying to stay present for my kids, husband and myself. I didn’t plan to take a sabbatical, it kind of just naturally developed into one as months passed and I had no inspiration to write.

I realize in retrospect that Read More »

Healing from divorce is a long process.  Everyone eventually recovers and finds happiness, but the first year or two is more about grief than new life.  I wish it could be different, but that’s just the way it is for most people.

Personally I’ve experienced grief twice in my life, and both times it felt overwhelming.  Thanks to genetics (for which I can’t take any credit), it has generally been easy for me to find joy and satisfaction in my daily life without much effort. Yet during those years of grief, I felt lost inside and I couldn’t find that person I Read More »

We have four cats—all hunters who, despite the bell we affix to their collars, regularly bring us catches from the canyon:  mice, rats, birds, lizards, even an occasional baby rabbit and King snake.  As early as six-years old, my kids became adept at either rescuing a still-live animal from the cat’s mouth (which they’d release back into the canyon), or putting a plastic bag over their hand to pick up and dispose of the ones that didn’t make it.

So you can imagine our surprise to discover that we have a mouse who has taken up residence in our house.  We’ve Read More »

I am reminded of a quote by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons):

“Families are about love overcoming emotional torture.”

(And this applies whether you’re married, separated, divorced or single.)

Good luck and hang in there!

(photo by Anant N S)

You never know where you’re going to get the next piece of wisdom. Yesterday my son and I were at Trader Joe’s grocery store, enjoying a quick morning chat with a store employee named Wendy who runs the sample station. Wendy is one of those persons who knows how to talk to kids and really listens. We’ve become quite attached to her after shopping at this store and exchanging conversation multiple times. On this particular morning, my son was sharing some thoughts about what he liked and didn’t like about his recent 6th grade camp experience, Read More »